


The Witches

by bazemayonnaise



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, M/M, Missing Scene, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers, colleagues to friends to lovers, two incompetent men think that maybe they're white knights but spoilers they're not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 03:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19782364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazemayonnaise/pseuds/bazemayonnaise
Summary: It’s a long meeting, but Roger Harrington supposes it kind of has to be. In two days he’s going to joint-custodian of a gaggle of teenagers as they travel across Europe. It’s not as if it’s the first school trip he’s ever been in joint-charge of, and it’s not his first overseas trip, but with the memory of Washington still vivid in his memories, he’s bricking it pretty hard.Roger and Julius wind themselves up into a big panic because they're in charge of kids and everywhere they go explodes.





	The Witches

**Author's Note:**

> cw talk about reproductive health & abortions

“Sir.”

When Roger Harrington’s pupils ask him who his favourite student is, (and this is not an infrequent question,) he is never lying when he says that he could never, ever pick just _ one _ . His students don’t believe him; give him a groan and a “come on, Sir, this is a ‘safe space’!” but unlike the majority of the teachers he knows, he really doesn’t have a favourite. 

Even amongst the kids he spends the most time with, his decathlon students, he wouldn’t even know where to begin with ‘thinning the crowd’. Every single one of them had their strengths, their charms, their idiosyncrasies, and, above all else, their weaknesses — their human cracks and flaws. Some hidden more than others, of course, but there all the same. 

To him, choosing a favourite student would be like choosing a favourite decathlon event: oh art and music were his  _ favoured  _ topics to delve into, but there was something so pure about math and science, something so deliciously complicated about economics and social science. He loved a puzzle, a challenge, always had — it’s why he’s a teacher, why he’s so dedicated to teaching young people who’d rather be literally anywhere else than learning the ultimate of his passions -  _ history _ . 

And, if history tells you one thing, is it not that no matter how sanctioned your authority, there will always be someone to challenge you?

MJ has the uncanny ability to talk like she’s asking a question, but without actually lowering herself to ask a question. Harrington likes that about her: her inspiring self-confidence, her ability to question the regime. It’s refreshing, Harrington thinks, to see a girl MJ’s age, full of so much self-righteous spirit. 

“How can I help you, MJ?” he asks, his face set to its standard ‘pleased to see you!’ setting. 

“I was just thinking,” MJ starts, meeting his eye like a champ, “About the school trip.”

“Aren’t we all!” Harrington says, “If you’d like an advance copy of my itinerary, you just have to ask-”

“You and Mister Dell are chaperoning us.”

“Correctamundo!”

MJ’s face does what Harrington likes to call her ‘technically a smile’ - her lips have turned up the right way, but here eyes are squinting and her head has tilted a little to the side. It’s the face she makes when Harrington accidentally calls her  _ Michelle _ , and he doesn’t like inspiring it. 

“I just wanted to ask,” she continues, letting nothing on in her cold, cold eyes, “If I have a girl problem on the trip, should I come to you or to mister Dell?”

Harrington likes sharks, has always been an avid supporter of sharks, even flinches when they’re called ‘bloodthirsty animals’ on TV or in films, goes out of his way to avoid disaster films where sharks come off negatively - so he quickly tamps down the part of his brain that’s warning him that he is being surrounded by very very large fish in chum-filled water. Instead, he thinks about conversations he’s had with Julius Dell recently and he tries not to let it show on his face. 

“By ‘girl problem’,” he says, willing every pore on his face not to break into a sweat, “Do you mean a, shall we say, biological problem, or a romantic problem?”

MJ’s face sweetens by an entire degree. “Good answer,” she concedes, and Harrigton takes a half-second to  _ breathe  _ before she continues with “Biological.”

“Well, MJ, as a staunch feminist-” Harrington’s mouth opens to continue, but his animal brain, keen on self-preservation, stops it. “That is to say, as someone who has taught teenagers since perhaps before you were born,” Harrington reaches into his bottom drawer and pulls out a small fabric first-aid and unzips it for her. “This is the beginnings of my emergency kit. If you feel like it might be lacking, you are more than welcome to correct me.” 

He watches MJ prod around in it for a bit and can’t help but narrate. “Pads and tampons, of course, for anyone who needs it, and a, er,  _ cup  _ as I believe it’s called, and condoms and the Pill and malaria spray and lube and anti-histamine and pain-killers and a few epi-pens and an inhaler and plasters, non-silicone of course, and anti-bac gel and toothpaste and -”

MJ pulls out an uncut pair of DIY insoles with a blank look. Then she looks up and grins. “Dope. Thanks, Mister H,” she says, turning back around and disappearing into the corridor, insoles tucked into her hoodie pocket. 

Harrington waits until she’s turned the corner before he books it to the teacher’s room, half-running (not fully running, of course, that’s dangerous and would set a terrible example) until the heavy doors have closed behind him. He does a quick scan of the room and finds his target by the microwaves, thankfully alone. 

“Julius,” he says in a harsh whisper, covering his mouth so none of the gossip-teachers can read his lips, angling his body so he’s blocking Mister Dell from leaving the kitchenette. 

“Roger,” Julius replies in a mocking stage whisper, eyes not leaving the timer counting down until his food is freed from its metal prison.

“What age would you say a teenage girl — sorry, teenage person, should be using a tampon?” 

He watches Julius’ face contort into a look of ‘I should know this’ horror, eyes still trained on the microwave like it’s an anchor. “Eighteen?” he hazards, then flinches. “Fourteen?”

“What about a sixteen year-old, am I being a responsible chaperone if I’m suggesting to sixteen year olds that-”

Julius’s finger presses into Roger’s lips, shushing him as a couple of the more  _ interested  _ teachers’ heads turn towards them. Roger gives them a totally-not-suspicious wave, then they turn their backs against the crowd. 

Julius slips his phone out of his pocket, opens his browser on incognito and types ‘minimum age to wear tampon’. They wait for a second as it loads, then browse through the top three links; including a wikihow on how to insert them. 

Both men nod solemnly as they read through advice forum after advice forum, and it’s only the incessant beeping of the microwave that brings them back. 

Julius closes the tab and pockets his phone. “MJ?” he asks, and it’s not really a question because there’s not really anyone else who inspires the same kind of panic in the teachers at Midtown, but Richard confirms it with a small “MJ,” then a “enjoy your lunch, Julius.”

Richard doesn’t think Julius has much of an appetite anymore.

-

Julius Dell has taught more sex-ed classes than should be legal. In his ten years as a High School teacher, he’s taught kids how to put condoms on fake dicks, what to do if you’ve caught an STD, and has watched that video of a woman giving birth so many times he can repeat it word-for-word. 

He likes to start his classes by having the kids shout the word ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ until they can say it without looking like they’re going to explode from a gross, hormonal death.

He likes to think he’s kept his classes casually inclusive, casual enough that he won’t get in trouble with the school board but inclusive enough that those who would read between the lines could. It’s certainly more than  _ he _ ever got in school but right at this moment, his ‘defiance’ rings a lot emptier than he’d thought. He knows about the biology of periods, isn’t squeamish about blood or about reproductive organs he doesn’t have, so maybe he was making this a bigger deal than he needed. 

For a long while he’d just  _ assumed  _ that those who needed the education were squirrelled away by some private tutor, most likely in the girls’ phsy-ed classes. Pretty irresponsible, ‘casual inclusivity’, especially when you presumed teenagers with vaginas were protected by some unseen force. 

-

It’s a long meeting, but Harrington supposes it kind of has to be. In two days he’s going to joint-custodian of a gaggle of teenagers as they travel across Europe. It’s not as if it’s the first school trip he’s ever been in joint-charge of, and it’s not his first overseas trip, but with the memory of Washington still vivid in his memories, he’s bricking it pretty hard. 

“ _ The odds, _ ” the principle is saying, her lawyer sat close at her side, “ _ of another Avengers-level catastrophe happening…” _ Harrington’s brain automatically begins to fade out her voice. It’s unlikely - nay it’s  _ impossible  _ that he would be in the same place as another extraterrestrial attack. The fact is, even if you live in New York, the chances of being caught up in the blast radius is so minimal that he’s the person friends of friends talk about when they say “oh I know someone who was in an attack!” Plus, they’re going to Venice! to Paris! When was the last time Europe was attacked? London gets a few tremors here and there, but the chances of getting caught in an attack in Venice must be like being hit twice by lightning. 

He begins to nod, signs his name on a contract that says, in no uncertain terms, that it is not the school’s responsibility should something happen to one of the kids after they’ve left the school grounds. 

He takes a glance at Julius, who looks like he’s having an equally quiet panic about the situation. When the meeting’s over, they walk towards the carpark together in silence. 

“Did you know,” Roger says into the dead air, “That one of the reasons witches are so commonly portrayed as child-killing women is because they are written by men in societies who feared a woman having bodily autonomy?”

Julius takes this in before responding with a ‘huh’?

“Old women in forests, they’re the ones who’d have the ability to give a medicinal or surgical abortion to young pregnant people, so men seeded distrust in them by calling them ‘witches’.”

“Huh.”

“Of course some of it was racial, religious or xenophobic prejudice — large noses, curly dark hair, etcetera etcetera.” 

Julius presses the button on his key fob and his car unlocks. “Okay.”

“It just makes you think, doesn’t it,” Roger continues, oblivious to the look Julius is shooting at him, “How men’s inability to see the womb as anything but a possession can lead to the slaughter of hundreds of people?”

“Witches, huh.”

“Witches,” Roger echoes. 

“Bet them witches have a lot to be angry about.” 

“Probably.” There’s another beat of silence before Roger comes back to himself and gives Julius’ car a little pat. “Well, have a safe drive home, Julius!”

“Yeah.” Julius looks a little spooked, but Roger puts that down to the signing of the contract. “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

Roger stands and waves Julius’ car off before walks out of the carpark and grabs the bus to his lonely flat. 

-

The first time Roger has time to  _ think  _ is at the opera in Prague. From getting the kids onto the bus to the airport, to the plane ride, to getting them all checked in to their hotel in Venice, to the attack, to the coach to Prague, it’s all been a hell-ride and any time not literally spent counting childrens’ heads or running for their lives has been spent passed out in a deep, restless sleep. 

Roger thinks he’ll like the opera - it's something he’s always wanted to experience — not just the music but the atmosphere, the clothing, the pure artistry of the very building! Prices being what they are in New York he’s never had the chance to watch one live, so these front-row ticket upgrades are like a dream. Plus, what better way to not have to go about losing kids than having them sit still for four hours? 

He’s tired. Dear God, he’s tired. Never mind walking around cities doing the standard tourist fare, he’s mentally and emotionally fatigued from pastoral care and the near-constant emergency fight-or-flight responses. 

As the orchestra begins to swell, he’s aware that he’s sinking into his seat. It’s not as plush as he’d assumed it’d be considering the opera is very much a rich person’s pastime, the faded velvet and mahogany wood back as uncomfortable as a seat on a bus or a metro, but he supposes it’s designed that way so you stay engaged with the work. 

It’s kind of nice, though, he thinks. He’s always been a bit of a mother-bird, pecking at his students to get along, to sit still, to eat and wash and do their homework, but with a small group like this, with Julius as his team ‘dad’, it’s kind of like having a family. He’s always wanted a big family, but his wife, his  _ ex-wife _ , hadn’t, and he’d wanted to please her, so he’d stayed quiet and then she’d run off anyway, hadn’t she, which really showed Roger, didn’t it, showed him he should follow his dreams, showed him he should say what he wants, do what he wants...

Roger jolts awake when the orchestra comes to an abrupt stop. He almost begins to clap, guilty that he’s missed the first act in a doze, until he hears a frantic woman on the PA speaking very fast in a language he doesn’t understand. A few of the doddering old people around him are getting out of their seats, ushers running down the aisle towards the emergency exits. Roger doesn’t have to wait until the PA begins to repeat the announcement in English for him to grab his and Julius’ packs from the floor and shouting “okay kids” down the row-

The empty row. Julius is still beside him, chin-to-chest asleep, but there are no teenagers in the seats they’re supposed to be in. Roger blinks, as if somehow they’ll just  _ appear _ , but they  _ don’t _ . His hands are already shaking Julius awake, even as his brain functions begin to shut down.  _ The kids are gone and the city is being attacked, the kids are gone and the city is being attacked -  _

“Julius, get up!” Roger squeaks, even as a slightly-less panicked-for-their-life usher starts to shout Czech at them in what Roger can only assume is “hurry the fuck up and get out of here!” 

“Hm?” Julius has the nerve to wake slowly, as if he’s being risen from a beauty sleep. “Oh damn, did I miss the ending?”

“The kids are  _ gone _ ,” Roger says, even more terror in his voice as he vocalises it. 

“Because I swear I was awake right up until the end, there-”

“There’s another  _ thing  _ attacking the city and the kids have  _ gone _ !” 

Julius takes a long look to his left and when he speaks, his voice cracks. “The witches have extracted vengeance on us.” He scrabbles to his feet, shudders at the empty chairs and turns to Roger. “God help us all.”

“Maybe they’re in the toilet!” Roger says, hysteria setting in. “All of them, together, because there’s safety in numbers!”

The usher starts to physically push them towards an emergency exit and Roger gets the feeling that she’s not allowed to leave until they’re through the door, so he grabs Julius’ arm and hauls him out faster. 

The exit leads them to a main road that leads towards Praha hlavní nádraží. It’s the main station in Prague. It’s usually busy. Right now, crowded wouldn’t even register on the scale of  _ close _ . Cars, vans, people, a wall of people, all in carnival outfits, pushing and shoving, trying to climb over one-another to get to the station. He can hear choppers, police sirens, loud voices saying things that probably mean ‘stay calm, don’t push, no trains are leaving the station’, but it’s all drowned out by the infection of panic. 

Roger pulls Julius against the wall of the Opera house to avoid the swell of people, not wanting either of them to get swept up in the push and the pull of the frantic crowd. They exchange a look of pure terror. They had taken a scenic route from the Carlo IV hotel to the State Opera, but it really only should have been a ten minute walk through the Vrchlického sady park. 

The kids would have no direct route to remember the walk by. If they were nearby, they would have to brave the stream of people heading towards the station in order to cross towards the hotel. Old Town square, where the height of the carnival is, is a 20 minute walk west. 

Roger looks at the main road in front of them, then grabs Julius’ hand. “We’re going to find our kids, Mister Dell.” 

-

Zach, Zoha and Yasmin are waiting in the hotel lobby when Julius and Roger stumble in, two hours later. Julius is sweaty and hot and his chest hurts from running damn near constantly since leaving the opera house and he  _ knows  _ he’s in healthier shape than Harrington is. He’s practically dragging the man along with him, pure adrenalin keeping them both upright. 

“Holy shit,” Zoha says. “Zach, get the boys and some towels from the room, Yasmin, grab some water and - Sir, are you hurt, do you need first aid?”

Julius shakes his head, dumping Harrington on one of the ornate couches before sprawling half-on-top of him. 

When Zach and Yasmin run off on their supply runs, Zoha approaches. Her usually-perfect hijab is dishevelled, and she looks  _ tired.  _ “Josh, Tyler, Sebastian and Flash are upstairs, and they’ve got Brad tied up because he kept trying to escape to go and find MJ. We haven’t heard from her, or from Betty, Ned or Peter.”

Julius nods, his throat and chest straining to breathe. 

“We thought it would be safer to assemble here, Sir, because we thought that’s where you and Mister Harrington would be…” Her voice sounds so  _ young.  _ “We’re really, really sorry, Sir, for sneaking out of the opera, we swear down we didn’t mean it to get like this, and we thought this is where you would be, and-” 

Zoha wipes at her eyes, obviously frustrated to be crying. 

Julius forces himself to stand. Harrington has passed out and Julius is glad, the man had been over-exerted  _ before  _ all this. “When the others come down, take Mister Harrington to my room.” He hands Zoha his room keys, not wanting to pat Roger down while he’s unconscious. 

“Sir?” Zoha asks, following Julius through the lobby. “Where are you going?”

“To find some witches.”

-

Roger is sitting on Julius’ bed when Julius returns. He can see from Julius’ face that he’s done what Roger’s just done: gone to each kid’s room and seen that they’re all alive, all physically uninjured. Only a couple of the kids had been in their own rooms despite the luxury of not having to share: tonight isn’t a night that a lot of people would want to spend alone. 

Julius sits next to Roger on the bed. 

“Those kids are going to be so messed up,” Roger says.

“They ain’t ever going to listen to us again.”

“They were hardly listening to us before.”

Julius lets himself fall back on the bed. “You switched your phone back on?”

Roger shakes his head, then follows Julius’s lead and lies beside his colleague.

“You think those contracts we signed protect our asses from answering phone calls from parents?”

“No,” Roger groans. He doesn’t want to think about it. He’s fielded angry-parent phone calls before, he’s even fielded ‘my child nearly got killed in an elevator during an attack and had to be saved by Spider-man’ phone calls before. He’s not sure there’s much precedent for ‘my child has been attacked in two separate European cities in two days, I’m not on the same continent as them, and the  _ teachers were both asleep when my child was attacked _ .’

“We’re fucked, man.”

Roger drags a pillow over his face and groans into it. They really, really are. 

-

Julius isn’t sure when “we’re going home tomorrow morning” became “after we’ve had a brief tour of London.” 

He’s left a lot of the itinerary shit to Harrington, who’s planned all of the visiting of old buildings and abandoned castles and vaguely science-parallel museums. 

Neither Roger nor Julius had slept last night, which was a real fucking shame considering the quality of the bed they were posted on, but parents were parents and Julius’ hotel room had become a call centre. 

First had come the frantic “is my child alive” calls, especially from those who couldn’t afford to send their kids off to Europe with a roaming plan on their phones. Each parent was (with the child’s permission) given their kid’s room number. It was settled almost instantly that the remainder of the trip was cancelled and that they would return home first thing. 

Next had come a small trickle of secondary calls, asking for more information from the scene, where each child had been, why the kids had been out so late despite the carnival, the route to and from the opera house… 

Then came the stream of tertiary calls — these obviously post some sort of communal sharing of intel on the parents’ side. “Of course Tyler’s mother said that Mister Harrington told her…” “So you and Mr Harrington just  _ happened  _ to have upgraded to a hotel  _ closer  _ to the city centre during the carnival?” “What exactly did you say this tour company was called? Because Yasmin’s father says he once worked with…”

Then came the flood, the conspiracy theories, the accusations of kidnap. Conspiracy theories, Julius could handle. The monster made of magma was actually a Russian plot to lure America’s brightest minds to their deaths. The wind monster was created by Climate Extremists who were feigning the climate crisis. The water monster was mother ocean’s payback for Pollution and Trawler Fishing. 

_ You’ve kidnapped our children _

That call cuts Julius. It’s a parent, and they’ve got a crack in their voice. 

_ I want my baby back _

They’re crying, Julius can hear it. The phone is gripped in the parent’s hand, the parent on the floor by the receiver. 

_ Give me my baby back _

_ Please _

_ Please _

_ please _

_ please … please … please … _

Click, and the line dies. 

Home can’t come fast enough. 

\- 

“I’m sorry, Julius.”

“What you got to be sorry about?”

They’re on a bridge in London. Roger doesn’t really know where they are any more, other than that they’re still in Southbank. MJ, Ned, Flash and Betty are nowhere to be seen. The other kids are bunkered down in the basement of a pub - it’s deep, must have been an air raid shelter in the second world war. It’s safer than being up here. 

“I’m sorry you have to die here, with me. I’m sure you’ve got loved ones you would rather spend your last moments with, but instead you’re going to die here alone, with me. It really is no way to go.” 

“You think I’d rather sit here and watch my loved ones die?”

They’re both crouched behind a huge chunk of no-longer-sidewalk, flinching every time there’s a burst of rapid-fire machine gun fire. 

“That’s not entirely what I meant-”

“You find that negative self-talk shit works out well for you?”

“Oh well most people tend to stop listening when I start speaking anyway.”

Julius looks at Roger, then Julius kisses him.

“Wha-” 

“End of the world baby, why the fuck not.”

“But-”

“Now you can’t say I ain’t got anything from being here with you. You want me to die on a bridge in London without someone to kiss?”

Roger can tell his face is a picture. Surprise, mostly. Julius is laughing, and Roger feels himself infected by it. All that intense panic, all that hatred and anger and fear gets a wash over it.

There’s another burst, and then Spider-man swings past them, shooting bursts of webs that catch a flock of drones. Julius and Roger sit back against their slab of concrete.

“What do you think the collective noun for a dozen drones is? A flock? A swarm?” 

“Gotta be a swarm, right? Those shits are like wasps.” 

“Do you think spiders eat wasps?”

“Maybe those fuckers in Australia, those huge bastards would eat anything.” 

There’s an explosion above them, and after the debris has scattered around them, they look up like they're watching a fireworks display. 

“Wonder why he doesn’t spin a huge fuckoff web in the middle of the bridge and lure ‘em through it.” 

“More man than spider, I suppose.” 

“You go to that charity thing the other day?”

“No, I caught it on the news, though. You were there?”

Julius follows Spider-man’s movements as good as he can, head whipping back and forth , sometimes slowing when he’s lost track of the suit before he catches sight of him again. “He’s a kid. Local kid.”

“You saw his face?”

“Kid didn’t use a vocal modifier. He’s pubescent, from Queens. Wouldn’t be surprised if he was a Midtown kid.” 

Roger’s eyes drop from the swinging superhero down to Julius. “What would a kid from Queens be doing in London?” 

They meet eyes, and in that moment, they come to a decision. 

“Couldn’t be a kid from Queens,” Julius says, brushing concrete fragments from his jeans. “That Spider-man’s way too polite.” 

“He’s the only Avenger left,” Roger agrees, “No doubt the UN’s sparing no expense to have him deployed anywhere there’s a threat.”

“They got intel and tech and all that shit, can predict where the next emergency will be probably days ahead of actual attacks.”

As they’re talking, their eyes say:

“Flash has a huge hard-on for Spider-man.”

“But he’s filming his every breath, and has filmed Spider-man’s fights before. Ned’s a bit large for the suit.”

“Unless he’s using some sort of tech to disguise himself. Parker? He’s a bit of a wet blanket.”

“And he keeps getting himself lost, some superhero that is.”

“Betty or MJ.”

“MJ’s got the politics, the confidence, the demeanour. She’s the obvious choice.”

“Betty could be a dark horse. You know how it is, the quiet kid sets herself up to avoid the limelight…” 

The largest explosions seem to have faded, and now there’s only the sound of a distant, localised fight - one drone firing at a time. There’s a moment of silence… then a single gunshot. 

For some reason, the quiet and deserted bridge seems more terrifying in the silence. Julius gets up, extends a hand to Roger, helps him up. They take a cautious look around, but other than the sparking, burning remnants of drones, there’s no movement. 

They jog back to the pub, flitting between the safety of upturned cars and chunks of building. 

-

The school calls for a PTA meeting the evening the group lands in New York. Never mind that Julius and Roger haven’t slept for nearly 2 days now, never mind that they’re jetlagged and paranoid and the sound of a car backfiring outside the airport had made them drag the kids down to the floor, ordering them all to cover their heads. The school’s got to make sure it’s not going to be held accountable, and it wants parents to stop phoning the secretary, so they’re going to feed Mister Harrington and Mister Dell to the vultures. 

It’s the circle of life, the natural order of things, but they don’t have to  _ like  _ it. As the pair split to dump their bags in their respective offices, it hits Julius that this will be the first time they’ve spent away from each other in nearly 48 hours, and it’s a kinda bizarre feeling. It’s not like they’d been friends before the trip, colleagues at best, really. Roger’s not really the kind of teacher who gets invited to the Sunday BBQs, or the kind of person who Julius would invite over to play video games with on a Friday evening, and is certainly not someone Julius would ask over to watch the big game with on a Saturday.

He stuffs his bag in the science department office, then takes a moment to come around to the idea that he’s made it back. Made it back home, to New York, to this shitty office that smells like microwaved pasta, burnt chemicals and febreeze. There’s a hefty stack of paperwork left on his desk, homework the substitute had set his other students but hasn’t deigned to mark, a stack of textbooks he’s been meaning to replace because they’re missing ten too many pages to be useful, and an array of mugs at several stages of decomposition that one day, probably soon, he’s going to find time to wash, disinfect, possibly burn, then wash again. 

He flicks through the homework, finds 60-odd essays about how Thor’s control of lightning works, and briefly considers starting an accidental-on-purpose fire so he doesn’t have to read them. He could always blame it on the sub, say they never gave him the homework. Maybe he could tell the kids that his dog had pissed over all of the essays. 

Nikesh A.’s essay is on the top of the pile. “RIP in peace Avengers” is written under the title of the essay, all italicised and in grey instead of black. 

_ Kids, man. They have so much hope.  _ The essay’s probably a wad of flaming bullshit, but Julius is overwhelmed with protective spirit. They bounce back. They get on with it. They don’t know  _ anything  _ \- no, that wasn’t right - they knew and they still had optimism. MJ, Betty, Brad, Flash,  _ Peter _ , whichever kid it is who’s saved their hides across Europe, Julius is gonna do his damndest to protect their ass in any way he can. 

Kid needs to go to the bathroom, ‘ _ urgently, Sir _ ’, here’s a hall pass, no questions asked. Kid needs to bounce from a school trip? Julius is going to be looking the other way. Kid comes back looking a pint of blood short? If Julius were allowed to donate blood, he’d tattoo it on his forehead. He knows he’s never going to be able to protect  _ Spider-man _ , never going to take a bullet, never going to shift rubble that’s crushing the superhero, never going to be able to hack into a mainframe or make a bomb from chemical supplies, but he’s damn sure he’s going to protect this kid’s  _ privacy _ . 

Spider-man wants a High School existance? Julius Dell is going to be the bastard that gives it to them. 

-

Mister Harrington is the kind of teacher that parents like to call ‘a bumbling fool’, especially when they know he can hear them, just outside his office door. ‘Head in the fucking clouds’ and ‘stuck in the goddamn dark ages’ usually follow, concluded with a round ‘teachers like him should be x, y or z.’ 

Mister Harrington was actually a doctor Harrington, had actually done his PhD in clever computer things, had been scouted for government facilities with really ominous and vague titles like ‘Mister Green’ and ‘Project Ghost’, but he’d never really got past the interview stage. Ominous government places liked small computer nerds, but they didn’t really like small computer nerds who  _ didn’t stop talking.  _

Doctor Harrington had gone into teaching because he liked pedagogy — the idea of helping to build and shape new people into stronger, more clever people was what he had always wanted to do. Getting paid to do it was a bonus. 

He’d had to teach a couple of college classes during his stint at Cornell, assisting professors, leading 101s, that sort of thing, and he knew within a year that he would never teach a university class. High Schoolers were impossible: they were horny, they were gabby, they were disgusting and they smelt terrible, but they weren’t evil. They could be, they really could, but most of them hadn’t realised that yet. Some of them were bad, not many of them were good, but only one or two of them were  _ evil _ . College students had discovered they were adults and that they could get away with things and that they had power over other people and chose to do really, truly terrible things. 

Roger didn’t play the fool, he really did have no brain to mouth filter and his nerves made him talk, and he talked about every private intimacy in his life until people started to quote along with him and he was a pretty pitiable sad sack, a bumbling fool whose wife had not only left him but mocked him as she did it, and maybe he deserved it, really, and she had her reasons, too, and she wished her happy with her new partner, would probably turn up to their wedding and give them a gift on the higher tier, even though he couldn’t afford to, then go home and cry for a bit afterwards, so when he tripped into the meeting room and sat next to a ramrod straight Julius, his first words were “I take full responsibility. Mr Dell urged us to curtail the trip after the first incident, but I was the one to accept the upgrades from the tour company because of my own private desire to travel.”

The Principle and her lawyer primly do not look at each other, and the parents that had assembled around the table stopped having their muttered conversations.

“Ah, Doctor Harrington,” the Principle says, and she’s never used that honorific before. “Julius has just been telling us about your exemplary behaviour on the trip. How you took responsibility over the class and have returned the students, despite the  _ three  _ Avengers-level attacks, without nary a skinned knee nor a scratched brow.”

“He did?” Julius is not moving, and Roger can see a thin sheen of sweat over his face. “I did?”

“‘Just good luck’ or no,” she continues in a voice that says she’s quoting someone’s very recent acidity, and there’s a couple of eyes that look down, “I have to say, mister Dell’s account of your quick thinking and adherence to emergency evacuation procedures seems to be a leading reason in why Midtown High has not lost any children this week.”

“No,” Roger says, feeling confused and out of place. It doesn’t help that everyone is looking at him now, including Julius. “No, that was Spider-man.”

“And Monkey-man,” Julius says over him, “Dark Monkey, whatever, that European one. Spider-man was in London.” His eyes go a little desperate. “Not in Prague or Venice, remember.”

“Oh, yes.” Roger turns to the parents and gives them a wide smile. “Spider-monkey and Monkey-man.” 

“I can see,” the Principle says as she stands up, (which prompts a couple of the more timid parent to mimic her as if rising for a judge) “That you are both exhausted from your trip.”

Roger is about to stand and to deny this, that he’d got his second wind, now, and was ripe to answer more questions, but Julius’ hand has got a grip on his thigh, and Roger takes that as a pretty succinct ‘sit down, shut up, let this tornado blow over.’

“But-” 

The wayward teacher doesn’t get a second word out before the Principle has turned her icicle grin on him. “Did you have something more to add, Warren?” Sometimes when rich white people used each other’s first names, it sounded like an invitation to brunch at a Country Club. This was not one of those times. 

“Dearest parents, if you have any more to add, you may address your concerns to the Vice in writing. Mister Harrington, Mister Dell, the school would again like to congratulate you on your heroism. Nary a scratch,” she repeats, her expression one of pure wonder so fake it was a wonder you couldn’t see the puppet strings. “Bright and early monday morning, yes?” She laughs like her sides are splitting, then she and her lawyer are gone. 

Roger looks at Julius. Julius looks at Roger. The teachers look at the parents, the parents look at the door. Roger clears his throat. Despite Julius’ hand clenching harder on his leg, he still opens his mouth. “Please tell your children that ‘bright and early monday morning’ also extends as far as them and that I will be endeavouring to provide a more appropriate counselling service from Tuesday. Okay,” Roger says, touching his hand to Julius’, and Julius releases his clamped hand. “Shall we go?”

Julius nods, and Roger drags him out of the room, their hands clammy and twitchy and gripped tightly together. 

-

They grab Roger’s bag first since it’s further away, then they grab Julius’ and they take the long route out to the carpark. Julius really doesn’t want ‘accosted by angry parents in a dingy school parking lot’ as his cause of death, and Roger looks like he’d be knocked over by someone breathing too hard in his direction. 

“You watch the game last week?”

Roger turns to him with a look of unrivaled fear. He adjusts his glasses. “Football?” he hazards.

Julius returns the look blankly, doing everything in his power not to react. Beat. Beat. Put the Fear of God into him and… Julius breaks into a grin. “Football,” he confirms. “You a sports guy?”

“You know I’m not, Julius.” There’s reproach there, and Julius likes the sound of it. 

“Not even that geeky shit, e-sports or whatever?”

“Not even ‘that geeky shit’, I’m afraid.”

“Damn, man, what do you even do with your buds on a saturday?”

Roger shoots him a look over his glasses. “My wife did not like me to have ‘buds over on a saturday’.”

“Woof.”

“If she had, though, we would rip through a session of  _ Dungeons and Dragons _ . God, I miss my party, even though Dave was a dirty minmaxer and Judy kept ‘forgetting’ to mark which spell slots she’d used and Ife rolled more nat20s than is probable in any fucking universe-” Julius watches the tightness of Roger’s shoulders start to leech, watches him unshrivel. “Pizza, doritos, full-fat coke, none of that diet  _ bullshit  _ Sandy always wanted me to drink which gives me the shits anyway, getting greasy fingerprints on our character sheets and watching my players spill coke on maps I’ve spent twenty hours drawing…” 

Then there’s a snap and Roger remembers Julius is there. His shoulders hunch, his face sours, he suddenly becomes 2 times smaller. “Sorry, like I say, ‘geeky shit’.”

Julius takes his car keys out of his back pocket, plays with them for a moment. He thinks about the flat he’s going to go back to. How his flat’s empty and cold and there’s no food in the fridge and he’d not cleaned it before he left because he’d thought ‘I’ll have laundry to do anyway, might as well clean when I get back’ but now he doesn’t want to do that, he wants to go to bed and sleep for a week, but he knows he won’t be able to do that because it’s going to be quiet, even if it is a flat in New York, and every sound is going to make him think it’s the last thing he’s ever going to hear. 

“You gotta teach me that shit some time.” He scratches his head, looks at the dark sky. 

“Sorry?”

“That D&D bullshit. Kids are going wild for it and I ain’t about to be outplayed by a bunch of fifteen year olds.” Julius risks a glance at Roger. His eyes are honest-to-God sparkling. 

“Really?”

“That shit got orcs or elves and shit?”

“Orcs  _ and  _ Elves!”

“Crossbows?”

“So, so, so many crossbows!”

“Still got all that racist bullshit?”

Roger winces. “Yes? But they really have made an effort to proactively hire creatives in a way that addresses their previous-”

“Fine, I need dice and shit, right? Where do I get that?”

“Oh, well, I actually have several sets of dice that I prepared in case I ever met an eager new player!”

“You free saturday?”

“If I wasn’t before, I’m clearing my diary!” Roger looks like it’s the Winter fucking Holidays. He pulls his phone out of his satchel. “Shall we make this ‘Facebook official’?” 

“Oh brother, that does not mean what you think it means.”

“Oh.” Roger’s face squints up. “Is it a sex thing? Because if it’s a sex thing, I need to talk to some Juniors.” 

“Why you got to make everything weird, man.” Julius takes out his phone, waits to swap it over with Roger’s. He types in his name, adds himself, then looks at the notification. When it comes, he nearly drops his phone. “You use your real name on your socials?” Julius grabs Roger’s phone again, already clicking through to his settings. “Nah man, this ain’t on.” 

“Excuse me?”

“You feel more like a John, Tom or a David? You Irish? Got a Jewish mom?”

“My family is German, but-”

“Tomas Schienle.” Julius saves the settings then closes the app. “What else you got, Twitter? Instagram?”

“I don’t suppose email counts as a ‘social media’?”

Julius doesn’t even grace that with a reply. He goes back to Facebook, ups the security settings from their default. “You’re worse than my goddamn nana, man, ‘share everything with the public’ it’s a goddamn miracle your baby photos ain’t plastered on every wall in this goddamn school.”

“My baby photos?” 

“These kids are ruthless, man. Gonna find you, trudge through all your shit, your college photos, your stupid-ass profile pics from when you went through whatever phase you went through, they gonna find your mom, download all her shit so they can blackmail you when you give their ass an F in finals.” 

“Oh.”

“They find you, they find me. Can’t be having that kind of weak link in my friends list.” He hands Roger his phone back. 

“Caesar O’Dell?” 

“No-one said you gotta be inventive.” Julius does a cursory scroll through Roger’s timeline, finds it’s full of shared videos from History Nerd groups, Ted Talks about inclusivity in school practise and - “God, you’re friends with a Bruce Banner roleplayer?” 

“Hm?” Roger cranes his neck to look. “Oh, no, you know I helped him out when I was at Culver.” 

Roger is taken in the moment, before he scrolls through his own phone. A moment later he holds his phone out to Julius. It’s a ‘selfie’ of a much younger Roger — long hair, cleaner-shaven, a lab coat over his cheap shirt and tie, taken clumsily before mobiles had front-facing cameras. He’s smiling at the camera with a thumb’s up, mouth full of pizza, a figure, slightly blurred, on a computer behind him. “Yeah, he was just a pizza boy back then. Gave me a free medium to let him use a computer. I was thinking about my PhD the other day, went looking for the photo, saw who it was, thought it might remind him of a fun memory!” 

“Wow, no shit,” Julius says, an equal amount of genuine surprise and pity in it. Then it hits him that they’re having this weird-ass conversation in a school parking lot at half-midnight and he wants to  _ not _ . He scans around for Roger’s car, but the lot is empty. “Yo, I think some kid’s jacked your ride.”

“Hm?” Roger’s attention follows Julius, then he cottons on to what he’s saying. “Oh, no, technically Sandy paid more on the deposit for the car, so.”

“So she took it?”

Roger shrugs a shoulder. It’s a kind of surrender. “The bus is fine, it gives me time to think, you know. Alone. One with the people.”

“Naw, that ain’t right.” Julius unlocks his car, gets in. When Roger doesn’t immediately follow him, he rolls down the passenger window. “Get in, man, you just got yourself a private Uber.”

“What? Oh no, Julius, that’s incredibly gracious of you, but-”

“I said get in, Harrington.” 

Roger hears the tone and clambers in. “But Julius,” Roger says, bag clutched to his stomach, “I know I live the opposite direction to you.”

“Who said anything about taking you home?” Julius starts the car, the music he’d left on blaring up again. “I got a perfectly decent couch.”

-

It’s the first time Roger’s had a sleepover for maybe twenty years. He’s kind of excited, bouncing a little on Julius’ couch, looking around the room with measured curiosity. He wants to know Julius’ little quirks, wants to look for nooks and crannies with bits and bobs in them, but he also respects Julius’ privacy, and will let his eyes skitter over anything that looks a little more private. 

Thankfully he’s carrying his bag so he’s in his own PJs, and had been able to brush his teeth with his own toothbrush. He’d also been allowed to use the shower first, so he’s warm and his eyes are dozy and no couch has ever felt this comfortable in his life. He can hear Julius in the shower, the running water dislodged as Julius steps in and out of the spray. 

_ I’ll just close my eyes for a little bit.  _

-

Roger is fast asleep by the time Julius is out of the shower, dried and in his sleep shorts. He feels a moment of envy, looking at the guy dreaming in his flat, so oblivious to the world around him that he can feel safe to just sleep  _ here _ , but Julius tamps it down. Good for him. Good for Roger that he feels safe, here.

Julius goes to his bedroom but doesn’t even bother attempting to lie down. He drags his duvet and pillows from the bed, spreads them out beside the couch and turns on the TV, sound on low. 

He leans with his back against the couch, the crook of his neck against Roger’s arm. He can’t really hear what they’re saying on the TV, is just watching the flash of colour and the soft murmur of voices. It makes him think of back home, back when home was three kids to a bunk, ma and dad watching TV in the next room, the sound of family sleeping, the sound of people laughing. 

He pulls his blanket around him and he feels… not safe, he doesn’t think he’ll feel safe for a while, but… _ safer. _

**Author's Note:**

> y'all there are 2 whole trans guys in peter parker's class played by 2 whole trans guys can you believe.
> 
> bazemayonnaise.tumblr.com


End file.
